


little lion man

by RainPhee



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (read: phee is angry at the lack of mccree lore), Alternate Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Family Loss, Fire, Heavy Angst, IM SALTY., Other, References to Abuse (if you squint), Very Young McCree/Teenager McCree/Blackwatch McCree, and yes the title is a mumford and sons song, at least as much as possible, its all there! wow, mccree is gay and has adhd and thats just tea sorry hun, theres some mchanzo activity if you squint but its very small, this fic is supposed to be replacement lore for the lore that he is LACKING, tumbleweed is also in this one yay!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-02-13 13:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12984762
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainPhee/pseuds/RainPhee
Summary: Jesse McCree. A man of many talents and many crimes. A burglar and a murderer to some, a hero to others. He wanders the desert, looking for something that no one knows, a dusty vigilante willing to kill for a few bucks.Long ago, he had a family. Long ago, he had a home.This is the story of how he lost that family, that home- and of how he found them again.





	1. Chapter 1

"You’ve got more freckles today.”

Isobel leaned back, rolling her shoulders on the threadbare couch and placing the book she was reading on her exposed stomach. Behind her, Jesse sat cross-legged on the old painted stool, its colors rubbed off from years of people sitting on it, and ran his hands through his sister’s tangled brown hair.

“Do I, now?” Isobel asked. Jesse nodded solemnly in only the way a seven-year-old boy could do, stroking her hair until it was splayed out over the arm of the couch.

“Mm-hmm. You’ve got an extra one, right below your eye. Riiight- here.” Reaching over, he poked her on the cheekbone. “See?”

“I’ll take yer word for it.” Isobel sighed contentedly, maneuvering slightly so she could rub her own neck. Jesse huffed as his careful work on her ponytail was undone, and began the process again.

“You’ve also got a new one on yer boobs.” Isobel laughed out loud at this. “Ma says it’s because you wear those low shirts all the time.”

“It’s _hot_. I ain’t even wearin’ a shirt right now, and neither are you.”

“You’re wearin’ a bra.”

“They don’t count as shirts, Jesse, and you know that.”

“Hmm.” Jesse sat back, surveying his work, and nodded. “You can sit up now. Yer hair’s all pretty again.”

“Thankya, pipsqueak.” Isobel swung her legs over and sat up, stretching and running a hand through said hair. “Feels absolutely lovely.”

“Don’t call me that,” Jesse complained, bumping his heels on the stool.

“Call you what?”

“Pipsqueak. I ain’t small. One day I’ll be taller than Ma, and then I’ll grow taller than you, Izzie. You’ll have to look all the way up to see my face!”

“I look forwards to the day.” Isobel stood up, yawning wide and kicking aside a few stray toys to make a path to their hallway. Just before she got there, she turned to look at her little brother and grinned. “Want a popsicle?”

“Yeah!”

The family kitchen was, as ever, cluttered with stuff that only the inhabitants knew of. The shelves were tall and packed, and Jesse squeezed himself in to sit at their table. A cat, one of the ginger ones, was spread lazily across the yellow paint, and Jesse gave it a quick pat before eagerly accepting the sticky, already-melting popsicle that his sister offered.

Isobel slid into a chair on the other side and sighed deeply, deflating a little into her seat. Green juice from her popsicle ran down her hand and began to drip messily onto her thigh.

“It’s hot as Satan’s asshole out there,” she groaned. Jesse smiled with strawberry lips.

“Ooh, you ain’t supposed to say bad language, Izzie!”

“Ah, you’ve heard it all before. Ma swears like a sailor no matter how hard she tries. It’s a way of life.”

Jesse made an amused noise and went to work busily dissecting his popsicle into edible chunks with his teeth. Isobel seemed more content to lazily lick at hers, even though every passing second meant that more neon juice trailed down her arm.

Once he was done, Jesse set down the stained stick on the table, only for Isobel to grunt irritatedly at him. He stuck his red-dyed tongue out at her, but picked it up anyway and tossed it in the garbage.

“I had another dream last night,” Jesse said as he pulled out a stepstool from underneath assorted boxes and shoved it over to the sink, clambering up to wash his juice-sticky hands. Isobel hummed in acknowledgment.

“I was a cowboy- a real kinda cowboy, with a special gun and everythin’. It could shoot six bullets at the same time, and I was a _superhero_.”

“A superhero _and_ a cowboy?”

“Yeah! I was tryin’ to save people. I was followin’ this old lady and a guy with a cool awesome bow- there was a cat too, she had a little red bandanna on, and we were all trying to save some people from bad people with big scary guns.”

“Sounds like a lot of fun! I mean, other than bein’ scary.”

“It was kinda scary, yeah. I wasn’t so much scared for myself as I was for the people. I wanted to protect them.” Jesse turned the tap off with a squeak and ran back over, sliding into his seat and kicking the underside of the table absentmindedly. “But it was still fun, cause it was just a dream.”

“Wish I had dreams like that nowadays.”

“You know, Izzie,” Jesse said, propping his head on his hands and grinning softly, looking at something his sister could not see, “I wanna be that cowboy one day. For real. I wanna find the guy I was workin’ with and find that kitty and help people. I think, that would be really... it would be right.”

“There’s a lot of ways to save the world, Jesse.” Isobel stood and flipped open the trash lid, tossing her green-stained stick in. She smiled, through, even through her mouth was brightly colored.

“But if that’s what you want, go for it. I believe in you, pipsqueak.”

And Jesse looked at her with stars in his eyes, and grinned.


	2. Chapter 2

The desert sand was icy cold and scraped Jesse’s skin, his shoulders shaking with exertion from being locked for so long. How long had he been crouching in this ditch, hiding from the fangs of the coyotes, only a few cacti between him and their slavering mouths? How long would he stay?

“Get- get, ya fleabitten sock-puppets! GET!”

He knew that voice. He sat up, arms stinging from the sudden movement, and shouted with a hoarse throat:

“ _IZZIE!_ I’m here, I’m here!”

“ _JESSE?_ ” The next sounds were the crunch of sandy gravel and boots. “ _WHERE ARE YOU?_ ”

“ _Down here!_ ”

The crunch of stone, muttered, frantic curses, and Isobel was there, pulling Jesse up by his arm and bundling him into a tight hug.

“Jesus fuck, Jesse, I thought you were dead,” she muttered into his hair. He merely whimpered and buried his face into her neck, feeling the sharp sting of tears behind his eyes.

“Are the coyotes gone?” he mumbled after a moment. Isobel hesitated, then nodded.

“I thought- I thought they were gonna... k-kill me...”

“Mm. You’re more likely to die ‘cause of Ma at this point.”

“I didn’t me- I didn’t-” Jesse burst into tears as Isobel pulled back, and he brokenly sobbed as she led him home.

Isobel was right. Their ma _was_ upset. But she was more happy that her son was home safe, and after an unexpectedly tame berating, Jesse was sent to bed with the tears drying on his face.

He had bundled himself up in his comforter and was more than prepared to cry himself to sleep when his bedroom door creaked open and in slipped Isobel, holding a mug of hot cocoa.

“Pipsqueak,” she murmured as she sat down on his bed and placed the cup on Jesse’s side table, and he immediately threw himself at her and sobbed for a solid five minutes into her shirt.

“I’m sor- sorry, Izzie...”

“It’s okay. You’re safe.” After another few moments in silence, she tentatively asked:

“But.... _why_ , Jess?”

Jesse pulled back and looked his sister dead in the eye, inspecting her face, then lowered his eyes.

“Promise me somethin’, Izzie. Please.”

Isobel stared, then nodded. “I promise.”

“Don’t tell Ma about this. I’m... I’m not ready yet.”

“...okay.”

“I...” Jesse shuffled slightly uncomfortably, bunching the comforter in his hands, and sighed. “I... I like boys. And I have a crush on a boy in my class, and he told me to do it, and I just...”

“Jesse.” He looked up at her fearfully, only to see her smiling. “It’s okay. I understand. You’re okay.”

Jesse smiled, tears poking at his eyes again. “Th-thank you.”

They hugged again, and Jesse felt safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they'll get longer and more plot-based after this one i promise


	3. Chapter 3

The staticy light of the TV illuminated the living room, and the teenager lying on his stomach, flipping through a falling-apart math workbook. Jesse wasn’t even paying attention to what was happening on the screen- some generic chick flick movie- and lay there in the dark, letting the pale light show him the figures on his papers.

The sounds of the TV were the only noise until frantic footsteps sounded outside. Jesse looked up at the door, but only for a second until in burst Isobel, her braid tangled and panting heavily.

“Iz-” Jesse was interrupted again by his sister flipping around and practically flinging herself against the door, locking it and throwing all three deadbolts. Jesse tensed. The last time they had done that was ten years ago, when a riot had started in town and Nina had been afraid that they’d come after her family next.

Isobel panted as she pressed her back on the wood, then exhaled deeply, seeming to deflate as she did. She slid down to sit on the floor, and bowed her head, shoulders shaking.

“...Izzie?” Jesse inquired carefully. She didn’t respond, so he tried again. “Izzie. Isobel.”

Suddenly, with a deep, rattling breath, Isobel’s head shot up. She stared her brother dead in the eyes, and Jesse noticed that they were puffy and red. She’d been crying.

“Where’s Ma,” she intoned dully, standing up and roughly pulling the elastic out of her mussed-up braid. Her hair fell out in a wave pattern down her back, like tangled vines.

“She went to bed early, said she had a headache.” Jesse stood along with her, leaving his math book behind. Isobel crossed the room with uncharacteristic franticness, ignoring the TV and Jesse and practically sprinting into the kitchen, where she deadbolted the back door as well.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothin’.” Isobel said too quickly. “It’s fine.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Jesse. It is _fine_.”

“No it’s _not_ , Isobel!” Jesse almost-shouted, blocking her from the door back into the hall. “You can’t burst in here at- at one in the mornin’, all fucked up and boltin’ the doors, and expect me to think that everything’s _fine_! I ain’t an idiot, Izzie!”

She wouldn’t look at him for a while. Her back was turned, facing the door, and it was dark, but it looked like she was shaking.

Before he could say anything else, Isobel whirled around and grabbed Jesse by the shoulders. His sister was no shrinking violet, and she kept him in a very tight grip, her pupils blown out in fear. In the moonlight that lanced through their kitchen windows, her face looked haunted, like a death mask.

“Jesse,” she spoke in a whisper, her voice rattling in her throat. “You listen to me now, and listen good. You’re a kid, you’re naive. I don’t want you- want you to-”

“Izzie, I’m sixteen.”

“Young. Please, I know how you are, I know that you like gettin’ yourself all wrapped up in feelings instead of thinkin’ with yer head- that’s a good thing, it really is, but Jesse, please, _don’t be like me_.”

Jesse felt something cold in the pit of his stomach, something dark and heavy and scared. He was scared.

“W-what do you mean?”

Isobel spoke her next words like a requiem.

“If you see any kids around town with a mark on their arm or neck that says Deadlock, Jesse, run. You run all the way back home and you don’t let them see you. Do you hear me?”

There were a million questions running through his head, and his knees were weak from that cold heavy dark thing burning through his intestines. Isobel’s eyes never left his face for even a second, and as he stared back, the shadows seemed to deepen, until he swore he could see the outline of bones on her skin.

“I- I hear you.”

“Promise. Promise me.”

There are a lot of turning points in a person’s life. Jesse had many. One was the day that he found out that Santa wasn’t real, one him and so many other children shared. One was the first day he saw a boy in his class and thought, _I’d like to kiss him_. One was the first time he did, in fact, kiss a boy, although not the same one. He knew that here, in the dark, his sister’s eyes boring into him, that this was a turning point.

What he didn’t know was how this night would affect him for years to come.

“I promise.”

Isobel’s eyes hurt on his face. She sighed, a deep, rattling sigh, and let go. Jesse could feel the ghost of her hands on his shoulders, and bruises forming underneath his skin.

He watched her disappear into the darkness of the hall, listened to her footsteps upstairs, heard the door shut to her room, and said nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh plot


	4. Chapter 4

Jesse knew that something was wrong the moment he smelled the smoke.

He had been staying overnight at a friend’s, vainly attempting to study for an upcoming test. Before he left, Isobel had been on edge, pacing around the room with her thick-soled boots. She watched him go from behind the curtains, and he could feel her eyes on his back as he walked away.

It had only been a few months since that night, and no matter what he did, Isobel refused to acknowledge it. Something had made him hold his tongue around Ma, too, some unspoken sibling bond forged after his promise.

He had gone to his friend’s- his name was Keith, and there was a bit of a thing going on between them, admittedly. They hadn’t done much homework. Other things had taken their attention, but all throughout, Jesse had felt an inexplicable feeling of dread, laced through the air like a fine, menacing silk. It made him sick.

Now he knew why it had been there, hovering over him all day, a cloud of evil that he sensed from a mile away.

Because Jesse’s house was on fire.

He dropped his backpack in horror, the feeling of dread solidifying into a sharp icy spike of pain. He suddenly convulsed and leaned over, clutching his stomach and retching out everything he had eaten in the past two hours. It wasn’t much, thankfully, and the vomit steamed slightly on the cracked earth. The air was thick with sulfur.

He watched it for a few minutes, still too shocked to properly react, when a sudden, nauseating thought jolted him out of it. Jesse started running, his feet slamming against the ground and only stopping when the heat became too intense to bear.

“ _MAAAA_!” he cried, so loudly and intensely that his vocal cords cracked almost instantly and his throat was filled with the taste of copper. “ _IZZZIE_!”

He called again, and again, and again, and at some point he started crying as the only sound that called back was the roar of the flames and the crackle and snap of burning wood. He called out for his family until he tried one more time and blood came up instead of a voice, and dripped down his chin. It tasted of metal and woodsmoke.

Then, he stood there and watched. Tears ran down his cheeks and chin and mixed with the blood, spreading it over his face and staining his shirt. The heat was almost too much, his eyes were baking in his skull, but he stood there. He stood there as beams were transformed to charcoal husks and splintered into fragments, raining sparks down into the ashes. He stood and watched his home burn- pictures and toys and _memories_ , all disappearing into the fierce teeth of the hungry flames.

He could only pray that the bodies of his mother and sister were not disappearing too.

Jesse stood there for a long, long time, and then sat for a long, long time. He watched until the roof of the building collapsed in on itself with a great puff of sparks and felt them burn his skin. He watched the ashes catch a few grass patches outside and then finally snuff out, what remained of his home of sixteen years blowing away in the wind.

He wasn’t sure when he fell asleep, but when he woke up, there were two people standing over his prone form. Both had bandannas on, and their eyes flashed at him in the light of the rising sun. Jesse’s face felt caked over with blood and ash and tears, but when he blearily raised his head, he noticed something.

On the arms of both was a tattoo- a skull and, underneath, the words Deadlock.

“Get up.” the one on the left said. Jesse pulled himself upright on shaking arms, but did not stand.

“M-ma? Izz-” he mumbled, but cut himself off. It wasn’t them.

The right one spoke next. “He _said_ , get up.”

Jesse complied, mostly because he had noticed the gleam of guns at the pair’s sides. They both towered over him, but they couldn’t be much older than he was. Jesse felt stiff and empty, like a river reed, and he wished that the wind would blow him away.

“Where’s- where’s my ma. And my sister.” he asked flatly. The one on the right smirked, or so he thought. It was hard to see out of his dust-stained eyes.

“They ain’t dead- leastaways, we didn’t kill ‘em. And we might let you try and go lookin’ for ‘em... if you do us and our friends a coupla favors first.”

_If you see any kids around town with a mark on their arm or neck that says Deadlock, Jesse, run. You run all the way back home and you don’t let them see you. Do you hear me?_

But there wasn’t a home anymore. It had blown away with the breeze, and Jesse felt so empty.

So he nodded, and the two in front of him grabbed his wrists.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i forgot to update on monday im sorrryyyyyyy
> 
> things kinda get Not Fun from here onwards whee


	5. Chapter 5

"Get on your knees.”

Jesse raised the corner of his lip at the threatening tone, although it wasn’t directed towards him. He had a different gun pointed to his neck, his hands in the air and bruises forming underneath his shirt. A fleck of dried blood was sitting uncomfortably at the corner of his mouth.

His eyes flicked over to where the current scene was taking place- one of those damned Overwatch folks, pointing the barrel of his gun at old Crazy Cat Luna’s head. She snarled, exposing the abnormally sharp canines for which she had been named. Jesse tensed.

“I’d rather die than listen to you give me orders, you half-assed fuckwit,” Luna growled. “Joel may be enough of a pussy to roll over like a dog in heat at the soonest word, but I ain’t a _bitch_ like he is-”

She turned her head ever so slightly at the last words, pinning Jesse down with her icy blue eyes, searing him with venom. Before she can insult him further, however, a gunshot cracks searingly loud in the small space, and Luna’s eyes go dull as her blood spatters Jesse’s face with gore. She stands upwards for a moment, almost comedically, before her body slumps lifeless to the floor.

“Jackson, what the _fuck_!?” cried the woman behind Jesse. “We were supposed to capture, not kill!”

“She wouldn’t have come with us anyway,” Jackson replies, and Jesse can hear an undercurrent of anxiety in his voice.

“The commander is going to have your ass on a platter for this.” the woman grunts.

“Mm. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, I guess. What’re we gonna do with that one?”

Jesse feels like a tightly wound spring. The barrel of the gun is very cold and very, very noticeable against the back of his skull.

“We can bring him back with us. We didn’t get all the Deadlocks- there’s still some more of those fuckers out there-”

Before he can hear any more, Jesse’s skull makes contact with something extremely hard and blunt, and with a sharp crack, he wakes up in a different room than the one he left.

It is cold and dark, the only light being a bare fluorescent bulb hanging from the concrete ceiling that washed everything in a blank white glare. Jesse pulled at his wrists once he noticed that they were bound, and finds his skin pulling against curved metal- handcuffs. They clang against the metal of the chair he is sitting on, and the sound scrapes in his aching head.

Across from him is what appears like a mirror, but he knows better. If he had more control, he’d flip a very inappropriate gesture at that mirror, but he settles for spitting in its direction instead.

He isn’t alone for long. A few minutes after he wakes up, the door hidden in shadow on one side of the room opens, and a man walks in.

Jesse has never seen him before. He’s tall, kind of imposing, dressed in all matte black with a beanie covering his hair. Scars decorate his face, and he sports a pretty well-groomed goatee and mustache cut through with those ribbon-like scars.

Jesse’s done this before. This is the bad cop, he can tell. This man will rage and threaten him, and if he feels like it Jesse will snap back. Then he’ll either make good on his claims or trade in for someone kinder to coax out the information, which they won’t get, and the end result is the same: him rotting in prison.

So he’s surprised when the man goes to the other side of the table, pulls out a matching chair, and sits.

That’s all he does. He doesn’t hide, he lets himself stare at Jesse if he wants to, but also lets himself look at his nails and the walls or whatever else might catch his fancy in a blank, emotionless confession room. Jesse sits back in the chair and lets himself slump back into his seat. His face is still covered in Crazy Cat Luna’s blood.

The minutes while by and turn into hours. Jesse’s been jumping out of his skin since the ten-minute mark, and he wants so desperately to claw at his own flesh until he stops being bored, but he can’t. It’s hellish, but he is also hellishly stubborn, so the two remain locked in stalemate. He has no idea how much time has passed. It might not even have been an hour yet. Who knows?

Finally, through, the man across from him breaks the silence.

“Why?”

One simple, plain word, presented to Jesse like a polite question from a friend. He openly goggles, taken completely by surprise.

“What?” His voice hurts after keeping his lips sealed for so long, but he asks anyway. He can feel his throat crack with the question.

“Why’d you join Deadlock, kid? Something’s different about you. You’re not a half-crazed brat running wild in the desert- you actually seemed to think about what you were doing.” The man leans on the table, and Jesse can see the cleverness in his eyes. “So. Why?”

“ _I don’t have to stay forever, right? I-I’ll do what you ask, and then you’ll let me go back to my ma and sister.”_

_“Yeah, yeah,” said the girl who Jesse would soon know as Cactus. “As long as you do yer job right, I’m sure that can be arranged. Can’t it, Pete?”_

_Pete just grunted in response, and the two hauled Jesse along until they got to an old house in town._

_And that’s where it started. Cold nights and searing days, a gun shoved into his young hand and rough lessons on how to fire it. He was good. Better than he should have been. “Do this, Joel,” they said, using the name they had made up for him. “do this and maybe you’ll see yer precious family again, huh?”_

_Do this. Do that. Kill him. Bend over. Shut up. Know your place._

_Jesse had stopped asking for his mother and sister quick. Doing so wouldn’t help him see them again._

_Yet he kept going. He could have run away, maybe. He started watching, waiting. Sometimes, he saw his family in his dreams, but they were never there for more than a few moments before disappearing in his arms when he tried to hug them. They left him again. They always left him again._

_And then, one day not too long ago, a new order. A belt slipped into his mouth, the taste of leather and sweat, his arms bound and spread wide, his chest heaving and exposed to the air._

_“Don’t scream,” they had said. And then the needles pierced his flesh._

His tattoo itched against his arm as he stared back at the man, and he couldn’t bring himself to say why.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is one of my favorite chapters actually, i hope you enjoy reading it as much as i did writing it


	6. Chapter 6

It always came back to fire.

Jesse watched the images on the screens like an outsider. The images flashed on his face, red and orange and white, and he stayed impassively still. Around him, the members of Blackwatch are running and screaming and crying, and McCree felt like he was trapped in a glass bubble, away from it all.

His bubble almost shatters when the screens flickered and changed to a familiar setting: the metal desk and scattered papers of Calida Santillan, one of the commanders of Blackwatch. She’s sitting there, head in her hands, a whiskey bottle by her arm.

When she looks up, Jesse can practically smell the booze on her breath. There are bags under her eyes so profound and so dark that they age her at least ten years, and the light highlights the grey that is creeping through her hair.

“I’m sure you’ve all heard the news,” she says, heavily slurred with tiredness and misery. Everyone in the room is staring at the screen now, some through tears. “An explosion in a base in Switzerland has killed Strike Commander Morrison and Commander Reyes. A hidden organization called Talon has emerged from God-knows-where in the woodwork. Commander Amari is currently AWOL, Professor O’Deorain has-”

Calida took a deep, rattling sigh. It almost sounded like a death toll to Jesse. “Just get out, all of you. Fuck off. Find a hotel room for the night. I don’t care. Get out of here before the authorities come and find seventy-five loopholes in our contracts that make us all criminals.”

Jesse is almost immediately washed away in the tide of people pushing for freedom. Unfeeling, unthinking, his feet lead him to his dorm. He bundles his spare clothes, his notebooks, his trinkets, all into a single unobtrusive duffel bag that was stashed in a drawer just for this kind of occasion.

Underneath his bed, pushed into a corner, there was a small cardboard box. It was stained with age and warped from years of rain, and holding it made McCree’s heart pound in his chest. But there wasn’t time. He shoved it in the duffel and fell into the current outside, all making a terrified beeline towards the nearest exit.

It was dark and cold outside. The journey to the nearest hotel was a blur of lights and noises that all passed around his bubble like distant water. He ended up in the parking lot of said hotel with very little idea of how he got there, pulled out cash to pay for a room without knowing where he got it, and unlocked the door to his room despite lacking the memory of him ever receiving a keycard.

It was only when his back hit the comforter that the bubble shattered, and everything that had just happened hit Jesse in the chest like a brick. His breathing grew heavy as the thick weight of despair tightened its grip on his lungs, like a cruel, spiked vice.

He’d lost everything, _again_. Just like before. Before this it had been Deadlock- as shitty and horrible to him as they were, it had been somewhere to rest his head, and somewhere that fed him and kept him safer than the streets. That had been ripped away in a blaze of steel and fire as well. And before them-

Jesse choked momentarily, then rolled over and pulled his duffel up from where it was lying haphazardly on the floor. Unorganized and with no small measure of franticness, he began to pull out clothes and supplies, throwing them to make miniature piles all around him, until he pulled out the box from where it had settled in the corner of the bag.

It was slightly crushed on one side, and for a split second he was afraid that its contents were crumpled, but his fears dissolved when he opened it and replaced the feeling with a sharp, painful stab of pure misery.

The first photograph he drew out was one of him, very young, holding up a large lizard to the camera and grinning with a smile that was missing teeth. The photograph was vintage-looking, taken with an old, old Polaroid, but his mother had liked them- strung them up by clothespins and twine in their kitchen and added every time a particularly good one was taken. They had only survived the fire by a stroke of luck, as they had been redecorating at the time and the photos had been put in a box in the shed outside.

The next one was of him, too, about three years old, standing next to his sister. They were knee-deep- at least he was- in the pond that formed in the wood strand near their house every fall, and both were equally covered with mud and sticks and leaves that implied that they had just been deeper. Next, Isobel, reaching up to pat a horse on the nose. His mother, sitting in the box window, her hands dark against the blanket that was draped over her hips. The iguana that had taken up residence in their kitchen one summer. Memories, trapped in tiny bits of paper and chemicals, stained from years of sunlight and falling in cat food bowls and being stolen by grubby hands. As Jesse leafed through them, tears began to fall on them too.

 _I can’t get_ rid _of you_ , he thought bitterly, pulling out one that he could practically see in front of his very eyes. He was nine, his sister sixteen, and they were standing there, side-by-side with their mother. She was holding Jesse in her arms- despite him being far too old, really- and they were all underneath the old oak tree, the one with the low-hanging branch that Isobel liked to sit on when the weather was nice. He could see the shine of sunlight in his mother’s eyes, the chip in his sister’s front teeth, and he whimpered.

It had been over a decade, and he still couldn’t stop losing family. Ten plus years, and the ghost of them still remained.

He slept with tears on his cheeks, clutching the photograph to his chest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I FORGOT TO UPDATE IM SORRY  
> also hey- this is where it links to 'just the little things'!


	7. Chapter 7

“Where ya headed, stranger?”   
  
Jesse traced the rim of his glass, looking under the rim of his hat with an appraising eye. Two people had slid into the booth across from him; a woman with short-cropped hair and a set of snakebite piercings underneath her lips, and a man with a bandage plastered against the dark skin of his nose. He looked him over appreciatively- he wasn’t bad-looking in the slightest, and McCree had always been a sucker for a handsome man.   
  
“Depends,” he drawls, taking out his cigar to puff out a plume of smoke. “Why’re you askin’?”   
  
“You see-” the man begins, somewhat nervously. The woman cuts him off almost immediately, and he notes the bags under her eyes.    
  
“I’m Holly, this is my husband Damien, we heard you were the best sharpshooter this side of the Andes an’ we want you to get rid of an Omnic problem on our ranch.”    
  
Jesse tempers down the minor feeling of disappointment at finding out the man was married and blows another plume of smoke, satisfied slightly when Holly blinks. "Omnic problem? Get an engineer then. I ain't a robot man."   
  
"We ain't  _ need  _ a robotics professional," Damien protests. "It ain't like that. We just need someone to put the damn thing out."   
  
"We'll pay in cash," Holly says, and now they're singing a tune that Jesse likes to hear. He leans forwards and pushes the brim of his hat up.   
  
"Tell me more."   
  
The ranch isn't that large an affair- bigger than some, smaller than others. He can see a barn in the back, for cattle maybe, or horses. There's a chicken on the porch swing, and it makes upset gurgles as McCree passes, fluffing out its wings.   
  
Nothing here really seems out of order, on first glance, and on second too. There's no major disturbances, no upset animals, no smashed furniture or fencing. If they brought him here for some kind of bullshit, he's going to be real angry.   
  
"Everything 'round here seems spick and span, ma'am," he says, swiveling on his heel. "I'd loathe to think that y'all good folks are tryin' to stab me in the back."   
  
Damien takes a deep breath, clenching his hands into fists. "It's round the back. Come with me."   
  
McCree isn't prepared for what he sees next.   
  
The ranch that his new employers have brought him to has, as is usual for these places, a strand of trees along the eastern side, to break up the wind and make sure that gales don't blow over any important buildings. And it's in these trees, chained up, thrashing like a wild animal and smashing anything within its reach, that the omnic is hidden.    
  
It's at least six feet, if not more, jutting over Jesse's head with a dangerous bulk and height. Its entire body is straining against the heavy-duty chains that are keeping it bound, and smashed tree stumps and broken links attest to previous attempts to subdue it. McCree stares up at it in almost-awe, because he recognizes the damn thing.   
  
It's a Bastion. Well, almost a Bastion. It's a repurposed, heavily fucked-up Bastion, with slits in its chest that he doesn't recognize and eyes that whirl wildly around in its rusted head. Bastions weren't like the Omnics that lived with humans, oh no. Bastions were killing machines, no personality, no soul. McCree could tolerate the humanoid Omnics, they were fine, as long as they didn't mess with him. But a Bastion?  He had seen friends, allies,  _ partners _ , all shot down by Bastions. He could not stand a Bastion.   
  
"I see where your issue is comin' from," he quipped, pretending to keep his cool as he watched the monster do its best to break free of its chain prison. "That's one hell of an Omnic problem, though. Made me more think of a wild servant droid, not a fuckin' death machine tryin' to break free and kill everyone within the next mile."   
  
"But can you kill it," Holly asks. No wonder she looks so tired, if she's constantly aware of this...  _ thing _ doing its level best to murder her.    
  
Jesse taps out the ashen end of his cigar and looks thoughtful. Inside, he's more alarmed than he lets on, as well as calculating everything he can about the scene. The Bastion doesn't look that pretty, and it is pretty heavily locked up as well. He could do it.   
  
But now he wants to know why.   
  
"Yeah," he begins, slowly, and the pair's eyes light up with hope. "It ain't lookin' so good, and Lord knows I've fought Bastions before. But I will require an extra fee for this, if you don't mind."   
  
Damien's face falls. "We're not that rich- we're almost broke jus' offerin' you this, please, mister. We can prob'ly scrape out a bit more, but-"   
  
"Nah, that ain't what I'm after. Tell me why."   
  
A beat of silence.   
  
"'Scuse me?"   
  
"I think I made myself clear enough." Jesse looks side-eyed over to see that both have gone rather pale, and Holly looks as though she's about to be sick. "I kill this thing, and you take me inside that nice farmhouse of yours and tell me exactly why I'm out here fightin' robot monsters from the Crisis."   
  
The two consider it for a moment, then Holly nods.   
  
"You've got yerself a deal."   
  
The actual fighting of the Bastion wasn't so bad. It was pretty securely contained, and the rust and warping on its metal exoskeleton made it weak and very susceptible to his well-placed bullets. The fact that its gun arm had been soldered off was not unhelpful either. It crashed to the ground in a pile of scrap metal and murderous intent, and Jesse watched the light dim inside its poorly added glass eyes with a small measure of regret. Even though it had been captured, the Bastion had kept on fighting. He respected that.   
  
He sauntered back to the ranchhouse to see Holly sitting on the front step, her husband behind her, the chicken angrily peering from behind the bushes in front.    
  
"Well, I think it's time y'all and I discussed payment," he drawled, and Damien sighs in defeat.   
  
"It's all on accountin' of this," he says, and drops the package he was holding on the porch. Jesse watches as the cloth comes undone and three smallish metal orbs roll out, bouncing along the stairs to rest at his feet. There are larger, heavier things in the package, too, but he recognizes the object that has come to rest at the toe of his boot.   
  
It's a grenade.   
  
"Yall're gun runners." He crosses his arms, metal one cold against the flesh. "All the way out here. Really."   
  
"We have good reason for what we do," Holly protests.    
  
"It's on-" she breaks, and for the first time, McCree hears uncertainty in her voice. "It's on accountin' of our family, alright?"   
  
"We can't have kids," Damien supplies. There's sadness in his voice. "There's a bunch of reasons why, and we just can't on our own. And some people 'round here are real backwards in their way of thinkin', and they think we ain't acceptable as parents. So we're tryin' to get out."   
  
"Get out of what?"   
  
Holly shrugs. "Here, mainly. But it's harder than it looks, and the ranch is poorer than it looks too. We ain't got any cows in the barn, hell, all we got is this chicken and three friends of hers. So we started this, and when we were offered the Bastion by the organization, we thought it would keep us safe..."   
  
"Y'all were fools."   
  
"We know," she replied. "But we just want a family. And you'd do anything for family, right?"   
  
Jesse didn't have an answer for that.   
  
The money exchanged hands, and Jesse went back to the saloon. But he returned feeling different. It had been a long time since he had lost a family, and something inside him had risen up at the sight of the ranch and the plea of his employers, something old and sad that he tried his best to crush down with his boot, but didn't quite manage to.   
  
So when the phone in his pocket buzzed that night, long after he had been kicked out for drinking far too much and kissing the man dispensing drinks behind the bar, something inside him knew that it wasn't just anybody calling. He looked at the number and smirked, and that something inside him twisted and changed, just a bit.   
  
Maybe family wasn't so far off anyway.    
  
He slid right and placed the phone at his ear.   
  
"Long time no see, Winston. Did y'want me?"


	8. Chapter 8

“Agent McCree, report to the briefing room immediately,” Athena intoned over the loudspeakers.

Jesse lowered his gun from where he had been aiming at an already much-pocked wooden target. Next to him, on the left, Hanzo lowered his bow as well, releasing the tension on the string.

“Oooh, shit,” chirped Hana from the side, where she had been occupied with a handheld console. “McCree’s in _trou-ble_.”

“What do you think the old man wants now?” Lúcio asked, sitting next to Hana with his legs crossed. He had actually been watching the competition, and kept score. “It’s twenty-three to twenty-four, favoring the cowboy, by the way.”

Lightning fast, and paired with a shit-eating grin, Hanzo raised his bow and shot an arrow into the target’s bullseye. He pivoted on a heel and smirked at Jesse. “There. Now we’re tied.”

McCree laughed, holstering his gun. “You’re killin’ me, Han. We’re on fer next week, right?”

“You know it, Jesse.”

“Hey now,” said Hana, watching McCree saunter towards the door and whistle at the cat that had been curled up loosely on her lap. Tumbleweed mewed sleepily, then got up and stretched, dashing lightly to Jesse’s side. “How come we call you guys by your proper agent names, but you two are on a first-name and nickname basis?”

“Hana, sweetie, I think you an’ I both know exactly why.”

Athena butted in before the conversation could continue. “Agent McCree, they’re getting impatient.”

“Well, looks like I gotta run,” Jesse said, shooting everyone in the room a small wave as he left. They all smiled and waved back, with a small “Good luck!” from Lúcio following him as he went.

McCree and his cat sauntered through the halls of Watchpoint, only stopping to pick up said feline when she meowed for it. Athena would sometimes appear on the loudspeakers, worrying at him and berating him for taking his time. He passed Lena on his way just when Athena poked at him again, and she snorted as she dashed by, eyes twinkling in amusement.

The end result of his leisurely stroll was that once McCree finally slipped into the briefing room, he was met with matching glares- or at least, one of them he guessed was a glare. Winston was sitting at a screen, watching something with interest, although he broke to look at McCree with a little disapproval. Soldier:76 was standing next to the usual map-screen, and looked furious, probably. His arms were crossed, and he irritably tapped his foot. That was kind of his usual state of existence, though, so Jesse wasn’t sure if he was really mad or not.

“You’re late,” he rasped, and oh yeah, he was definitely angry.

“At least it’s fashionable,” McCree supplied as he slid into a chair.

“You’re _twenty-five minutes_ late.”

“The height of style.” Tumbleweed curled her tail comfortingly around Jesse’s throat, and he sat up straight, looking at whatever it was that Winston had begun to pull up on the holo. “What’dya guys bring me here for? I was havin’ my weekly competition with our resident archer, and he owes me at least three drinks by now.”

“You can flirt with Agent Shimada later,” 76 snapped, then seemed to reel himself in. “Winston, do you want to explain?”

“Gladly,” the scientist replied, pushing his glasses back up. “Recently, there have been frequent bandit attacks in the area around the border of America and Mexico, seemingly based in a little town called Peco.”

“Yeah, and? Places like that, bandits’re just a part of everyday life. What’s the issue with it?” Jesse’s heart leaped up into his throat at the name, and he tried to hide his nervousness. Peco wasn’t just some desert town- it was home. He hadn’t been home in years; many, many years. Twenty-two, to be exact. He wasn’t sure how he felt about it anymore; the mere memory of the dry grasses and the play of light through the ranch house windows made his heart ache.

“You’re right, and normally, we wouldn’t bat an eye at it. However, we’re focusing on one specific bandit here, one that’s been cropping up more and more in the past few months.” Winston pulled up a picture and threw it across to McCree’s side of the table. It showed a form with a bandanna drawn over their nose, one long braid whipping in the wind. The picture was blurry and hard to see, and appeared to have been taken from a train window.

“This woman has been robbing hypertrains in the Peco area with more frequency recently. There’s very little information on her- just a few blurry pictures and one or two voice transcripts from the people getting robbed.”

“You still haven’t told me what’s so special here,” McCree griped, but something about the picture put a heavy weight of apprehension into his gut. Maybe it was the area still, but something about it- blurry and inaccurate as it was- reminded him of someone...

“That’s because she’s using your name.”

“Wh-”

“ _Please don’t hurt us, ma’am-_ ” Winston is playing an audio file, and Jesse can hear his ears roaring with blood. His heart has gone still in his chest, and he can feel every twitch of his own muscles. “ _We didn’t do anything. Swear on my mam’s grave._ ”

“ _I know. But I can’t let y’all pass without somethin’ to take with you._ ”

That voice. But there was no possible way-

“ _A name, ma’am?_ ”

 _“A name. Ye-es, I think that can be arranged._ ” A beat of silence, then a gunshot blares through the recording. The people scream, and the voice of the bandit rasps through again, tantalizingly familiar in a way that’s making Jesse’s stomach ache.

“ _McCree. Call me McCree._ ”

The audio cuts out, and Jesse is staring empty-eyed at the pictures. 76 and Winston look at him expectantly, and the sound of them holding their breaths is almost audible.

Silently, trance-like, Jesse stands up, and grabs his hat from where it has been sitting on the table.

“I’ll be leavin’ on the next shuttle,” he intones, and then the next sound is the doors sliding closed behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eye emojis
> 
> a light dusting of gay on this one  
> and HEY. @THAT PERSON WHO'S BEEN COMMENTING? YEAH YOU??? I OWE YOU MY LIFE. I CANT EXPRESS HOW MUCH JOY YOUR COMMENTS GIVE ME, THANK YOU FOREVER AND EVER


	9. Chapter 9

The desert has a taste. It’s not even a particularly bad one. It’s the taste of sunlight and dust and heat, the smell of baking earth paired with grass just this edge of staying non-combusted. Here, the desert tastes like people, tastes like memories. It lays heavy on McCree’s tongue as he stares out of the train window, hat low to shield his eyes from the sun.

He had left Watchpoint a week ago, settled in a larger town outside Peco, carrying little but his cat and a bottle of whiskey from his archer friend back at base. He’d never admit it, but the only reason that he hadn’t taken a room at Peco’s quaint little tavern was because it made him choke. Merely seeing the sign every day as he rode the bandit’s preferred hypertrain prey made Jesse taste smoke instead of desert, and brought tears to the corner of his eyes.

Yet he kept doing it. A train in every day, a train back out. Every time, he hoped the bandit McCree would strike, and at the same time he didn’t. His leg bounced rapidly in front of him, and he paid it no heed, feeling the tension build up in his veins.

He’s so wrapped up in his own anxiety that he doesn’t notice when the train begins to slow and eventually, come to a stop. Tumbleweed, curled up next to him, does, however, and stretches widely, yawning and exposing her sharp teeth. She paws sleepily at McCree’s serape and he starts, looking around with trained eyes.

“‘ _Scuse me, fine passengers,_ ” crackles a voice from the intercom. Jesse snaps to attention, his eyes wide. That’s not the conductor.

“ _I am so sorry to be delayin’ your journey today,_ ” the voice continues, almost amicably, and there is a hint of regret in it. “ _but I’ll be needin’ y’all to be gettin’ yer valuables and place them on yer seats. You see, I’m robbin’ this train, and if you don’t cooperate, me an’ my friends will have to make sure you have a very unpleasant time_.”

McCree’s moving before the announcement even stops. Someone farther down his car has started crying, but his hand goes down to Peacekeeper and he traces a finger on her wooden grip. He chose the first car for a reason, and now he walks silently up to the door to the cab, every muscle in his body poised for a fight if he’s wrong about his hunch.

He slams open the door, and _she_ is there, back to him, leaning over the intercom. The conductor is slumped in a corner, their hat placed over their eyes and hands and feet tied up.

That situation doesn’t last for long, however. The bandit McCree hears the door, and in a flash, she’s got her gun in her hands and has whirled around to train it directly at Jesse’s forehead. He would be impressed, if he hadn't drawn Peacekeeper and aimed it during the time she took.

Jesse is greeted with most of the face of a woman older than he expected. There’s crow’s feet around her eyes, and her brown hair is streaked with grey at the temples. He can’t see all of her face- the rest is covered with a red bandanna drawn up to her nose. Green eyes stare into his, cold and angry. There are a few freckles high up on her cheekbones, and he can see the tip of a nasty scar on the bridge of her nose.

Despite all that, he knows. He knew the moment he saw her eyes.

It’s her.

“Who the hell are you,” the bandit McCree growls, and Jesse nearly crumples. He wants to cry, wants to scream at the gods, and wants to run away all at once, but he does none of those things. Instead, he stays, steady and waiting.

“I’m someone you may have heard of,” he growls right back. The bandit raises her head in a manner that almost makes the light catch her eyes.

“Oh? What’s yer name then, stranger?”

He has to take a breath to keep his voice from shaking.

“It’s Jesse.” He raises his head, removes one hand from Peacekeeper to slowly remove his hat. “Jesse McCree.”

The bandit chokes. Her eyes go wide, and there’s a tremor to her arms. “No.” she whispers, aghast. “You were dead. I thought you were _dead_.”

“So did I. For twenty-two fuckin’ years, Izzie.”

Shaking, the bandit lowers her gun, and without breaking eye contact, yanks down her bandanna, revealing the face of Isobel Jenna McCree.

Jesse is crying now.

“You- I-...” Isobel breaks off, lost for words. Her gun is loosely held at her side, forgotten. Jesse has lowered Peacekeeper too. “I looked for you- the house- I assumed-”

“I missed you,” McCree whispers. Isobel’s head snaps up, and there are tears shining in her eyes too.

Before anything can happen, however, the splintering of breaking glass sounds behind them, and someone screams. Jesse and Isobel whirl around to see black-suited, gun-wielding operatives, pointing the barrels at any civilian in reach. On their seat, Tumbleweed was puffed up, hissing, fangs bared. Jesse got an intense feeling of déjà vu.

“These your friends, sis?” he asked, raising Peacekeeper again and shooting the agent who was beginning to train their weapon on Tumble. Isobel shook her head, taking her spot next to McCree and pulling up her bandanna again.

“Never seen these folks in my life. The ‘friends’ bit ain’t real, it’s just scare tactics.”

“Got it.” People were crying profusely now, and screaming. Glass shards crunched under Jesse’s boots as he moved forwards, already having gotten rid of the first two operatives, but judging from the shouting and gunshots from farther down the train, there were more smashing in.

“There was a train robbery a year ago. Hypertrain. Police attributed it to one Jesse McCree.” Isobel said between shooting at anybody who looked dangerous. The noise was intense, but somehow, he could hear her fine. He didn’t even feel like he was in danger; his heart was too light. “That was you, wasn’t it? I just thought it was someone with my dead brother’s name.”

“It’s a long story that I’ll tell you later.” Later. For the first time in years, there was going to be a _later_.

A shot ricocheted off a seat and Isobel swore through her teeth, missing it by a hair’s breadth. Better focus on staying alive before celebrating.

“Whad’ya think they want?” Jesse asked, cracking an operative across the mask with the butt of his gun. Isobel looked slightly contemplative.

“Haven’t a clue. I just came here fer their purses an’ luggage, nothin’ more. It’s just me, so there ain’t a huge cost, and sneakin’ on ain’t as hard as they make it out to be.”

“Sneakin’?”

“You know how it is, Jess. They don’t sell folks like us a ticket.”

They went down the train, and injuries began racking up. A scrape on Isobel’s arm. A bullet clipping Jesse’s thigh. By the time they reached the back of the train where a group were holding guns to the passenger’s heads as they attempted to hack the door open, McCree was just about done with the whole ordeal.

“Why the fuck-” An operative down- “does Talon-” a neck cracked alarmingly to the side- “keep robbin’-” focusing down the barrel of Peacekeeper and calculating their positions in the blink of an eye- “trains I am ridin’ on!”

Six shots in succession, and the agents slumped to the ground, dead. Isobel’s eyes widened, along with everybody else in the car. The only sound was the wind whistling through broken windows, the distant crying of a child, and the soft sound of Tumbleweed’s feet as she padded through the destruction and leaped up on Jesse’s shoulder.

Panting a bit, Jesse tipped his hat, picking through the bodies. “Thank y’all very much for comin’ to the show. Would greatly appreciate it if you didn’t mention me or my sister here to the fuzz, if you wouldn’t mind.”

The door was already weak. Jesse kicked it in with one move, and bowed slightly as Isobel picked her way to reach him. “Would you do the honors, Izzie?”

She nodded, and they both stepped inside. What greeted them made Isobel’s eyes light up, and made her brother rub his face, exasperated.

“Guns,” he moaned. “Of course it’s guns. Why’re there guns on a passenger train?”

“If I knew about these, I’d never have to rob again,” Isobel whispered. Jesse shook his head.

“No, no, no. You don’t want these things. They’ll probably get you tracked down by the cops in half a second, and they leave chemical trails a mile long. We need to go, before backup or authorities get here.”

Isobel looked torn. There was longing in her eyes, not greed, but a deep-seated need of the money that was available to her. She closed them and took a long, deep breath.

“Aight. Lead the way.”

The view from the ridge was much better, Jesse thought, than the one from inside the train. He didn’t even like trains that much, honestly. He watched the wreck of a vehicle below him and waited for his sibling, his long-missing sister, to finally crest the rocks and join him.

“I’m gettin’ too old fer this shit, Jess,” she groaned as she did so, leaning over to pant. Jesse laughed.

“Ain’t too old to rob trains, though.”

“It’s different.” But she chuckled, anyway, and brushed the dirt off her legs, and pulled her bandanna down again. Looking at her, scarred and freckled and burnt from the sun, carrying lines that he didn’t remember and ones that he did, Jesse saw the freckle he had first pointed out thirty-one years ago, still there. Right below her eye, on the cheekbone.

“Well I’ll be damned,” Isobel said, in a soft voice. Her eyes crinkled at the edges, and sparkled in the sun.

“What is it?”

“You did it.” She stepped forwards and placed a hand on his cheek, tilting her head, and Jesse saw the same face from his childhood. “You did it, pipsqueak. You got taller than me, just like you said.”

And he started crying, but it was all right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there we have it, folks. 
> 
> twenty-two years, and he finally got back.
> 
> thank you all so much for reading! this was a huge passion project for me, and i really poured a lot of heart into it- i hope you found it just as satisfying to read as i found it to write.
> 
> (and yes, their mother is alive. i might expand on that in future.)

**Author's Note:**

> @blizzard hire me to write the lore for your characters cause you apparently cant do it 
> 
> hmu at rainphee on tumblr if you want designs for any of the ocs/just to cry over the cowboy


End file.
